


it looks ugly, but it's clean

by sxldato



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Anatomy, Breasts, Brother-Sister Relationships, Coming Out, Family Feels, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Light Angst, Menstruation, Protective Siblings, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxldato/pseuds/sxldato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn’t want to consult someone else, and he didn’t want to tell anyone. Seeing a doctor or telling a friend meant this was real, that he really <em>was</em> different from other boys, and he didn’t want to slap himself in the face with that reality yet. </p><p>In hindsight, he probably should have told somebody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it looks ugly, but it's clean

**Author's Note:**

> trans nico is something i've discovered i am very passionate about, along with how much he loves his sisters. (sisters plural because bianca is still his sister even if she's dead and also reyna definitely counts as his sister 100%)  
> i'm really psyched about this. i have a whole document reserved for more trans nico adventures and it's gonna be a blast  
> unbeta'd because school starts again tomorrow after two weeks and i haven't done my homework lmao  
> title is from Cherry Wine by Hozier -- the title is the one line in the song that's relevant okay i promise the rest of the song does not reflect the tone of this story THIS IS NOT MEANT TO HAVE INCESTUOUS UNDERTONES THEY ARE SIBLINGS AND THEY LOVE EACH OTHER LIKE SIBLINGS THAT'S IT GET OUT OF MY HOUSE  
> and if somebody calls this an AU i fucking quit

He blamed it on lack of sex education.

He would have gotten it if he and Bianca had stayed in Maine at that boarding school, he was sure of it, but that hadn’t exactly been an option when they were running for their lives.

He’d been ten years old. Nothing had started, not really, and nobody had explained anything to him. He didn’t know how sex worked, didn’t know what got put where and who was ‘supposed’ to have what. He didn’t know what the difference between him and other boys was, and he didn’t understand why it seemed to be such a big deal to adults. Sure, there were some differences, but he was still clearly a boy. Being called a girl was less offensive and more just straight-up confusing, because how could they not tell? It was obvious to him, and to Bianca. It should have been obvious to everyone else. Shouldn’t it have?

Stepping into the showers at Camp Half-Blood for the first time had, of course, been eventful. With no prior knowledge about any anatomy besides his own—and no reason to think that other people had anything different-- he was floored by what he saw. None of the other boys had what he had, and he finally understood what that big difference was. What other boys had, what hung there between the delicate flesh of their thighs—he didn’t have that. It was foreign and odd and he found himself wanting to tear his gaze from it but also incapable of looking away, because that was _it_. He’d never been able to put a name on it before, but that was what he’d been missing. He knew it.

He was skinny, frail. His hips didn’t show and his bones masked the gentle slope of his shoulders, but things still showed. Breasts, small and dainty, blossomed on his chest between the ages of ten and eleven. He didn’t know why, but they made his stomach turn over, sent his skin prickling with goosebumps, and he wanted them gone. Like weeds, like strange, intrusive tumors, they kept growing. Bandages were never in limited supply, and he turned to those to tether his body down, to lock himself away, to look like other boys.

At least he _did_ , until his ribs began to warp under the pressure.

He didn’t care about his body—he’d divorced himself from it after Bianca died—and it wasn’t like his ribs would be the only thing that was messed up about him. At the mere age of twelve, his arms were completely shredded, sewn back up with ragged, pale scar tissue. But ribs were kind of important, and if he was going to live in this body, he needed to take care of it at least a little bit. No matter how much he hated it, no matter how much he wanted to tear himself apart, this was what he was stuck with, and he needed to make it work.

He discovered that since his breasts were on the smaller side, he could bind just as well with sports bras. He didn’t see a doctor about his ribs because he didn’t want to explain, but nothing was hurting and he wasn’t bleeding internally, so what did it matter? He wouldn’t do it again. He’d be smart about this, even if he had no clue what he was doing half the time. But he didn’t want to consult someone else. Seeing doctors meant this was real, that he really _was_ different from other boys, and he didn’t want to slap himself in the face with that reality yet.

In hindsight, he probably should have told somebody.

-

The day started with an uncomfortable cramping around his hips, below his stomach. Muscle pain was something he was familiar with, so he passed it off as something he might have pulled the night before. It happened all the time. It was nothing to worry about, so he didn’t think about it, got on with his morning, and ignored the persistent feeling that something was very, very wrong.

He made it until the early afternoon. The cramps were rippling through his body, making it hard to walk, making it hard to breathe. He considered, as he lay curled up on the sparring field with his sword at his side and the grass around him rapidly yellowing, that telling someone about this unbearable pain might have been a good idea. He counted his blessings in time with the convulsions in his abdomen that he’d been with Hazel, and not anyone else.

“Nico? Nico!” Her hand was on his arm, turning him over onto his back. Her eyes were wide with fear. “What’s wrong?”

“It hurts,” he panted. Combined with the heat and the sticky feeling of sweat, he was afraid he was going to puke if he tried to move. This was the worst he’d felt in a really long time, and the scariest thing about it was that he had _no_ idea what was going on. “Everything hurts, I don’t know what’s happening…”

“I’m gonna get you to the infirmary—here, put your arm over my shoulder, I can help you walk.”

Walking was not currently on his list of things he thought he could do, but he put a lot of his weight on Hazel as he hauled himself to his feet. His knees buckled under him, but he didn’t fall.

“Where does it hurt?” She asked, her voice low and calm.

“Around my hips—like a snake’s chewing on my guts,” he managed, a soft whimper escaping him as another sharp stab of pain swept through him.

He felt no shame in front of Hazel, which wasn’t something he could say for a lot of other people. She’d seen him fresh out of Tartarus, weak and paranoid and deathly thin, and she still loved him, was still proud of him. There was nothing that could happen to make him ashamed in front of Hazel.

Or he’d thought so, until now.

In the infirmary, he was told he had to strip, and dread made his ribs tighten around his lungs. The rational part of himself realized that it made sense. They needed to look at his stomach and moving around his clothes all the time would make it harder. But the rest of him was very emphatic about not taking off his shirt, and especially not his pants.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to. Less fortunately, the _reason_ he didn’t have to was because Hazel saw blood dripping from the divide between Nico’s legs. He caught the perplexed look on her face and followed her eyes until he saw it, too.

And then he screamed.

She shushed him frantically, pressing her hands over his mouth. “I know what this is,” she told him, quiet enough so only he could hear her. “But we can get you out of here—they don’t need to look at you for this.”

Nico was still in a lot of pain and was still very scared, but he trusted Hazel more than anybody. “Okay.”

He let her tell the medics that it had all been a mistake, that he was fine and she could take care of it, before they slipped out and Hazel took him back to the Hades Cabin. She guided him to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Nico sat on the toilet seat, staining the porcelain with his blood.

Hazel knelt down in front of him so she could see his face, pushing his hair away from his forehead. “Let’s get you cleaned up, alright?”

“What’s happening?” Nico asked, sounding more desperate than he would have liked. “You said you knew, so what’s—what’s wrong with me—?”

“Can you be honest with me, first?” Hazel replied.

Terror clenched his stomach. “What?”

She smiled, and it was warm and loving and made him feel safe despite everything. “You know I’ll always love you, and always support you. And you’ll always be my brother, no matter what. And I won’t tell anyone else if you don’t want me to.”

She knew. Nico didn’t know how, but she knew. He was speechless, any words he would have wanted to say catching in his throat. This was not the time for hesitation—he was bleeding out in his bathroom and he wasn’t going to find out why until he told Hazel what he’d been keeping to himself.

“Other boys have something I don’t,” he said. His fingers curled around the rim of the toilet, knuckles turning white. “I don’t—I don’t know why I don’t have it, but what I’ve got is different.”

He’d looked up male anatomy online a while ago-- it had made him angry that it was called ‘male’ anatomy because _he_ was male, and _he_ didn’t have these things, and that didn’t make him any less of a man—and he’d learned the words and the terms for things he was missing. But he didn’t want to say any of them, not to Hazel.

Should he have researched what people called ‘female’ anatomy while he was at it? Probably. He _should_ have done a lot of things. If he had, he figured he wouldn’t be sitting here in front of Hazel, trying to explain something he didn’t know the first thing about.

“Do you know what you _do_ have?”

He shook his head. “I mean… there’s another hole—I’ve never really known what it does, but… I—I don’t know… I guess I should have asked somebody or something? But I didn’t—I didn’t want anybody to know…“ He was stammering so badly, he was shaking, and he wanted this to end.

“What about your chest?” She was so tender, no anger or shock in her tone, and it made this all a little easier to bear.

“It’s not… not normally flat, but I, um… I bind it— _them_ , there are… there are two of them.” He hadn’t realized he’d started crying until Hazel was reaching up and wiping the tears off his cheeks. “Are you mad at me for not telling you?”

“No, no, of course not—come here.” Hazel got up and pulled him into her arms. “I’m not mad, Nico. I want you to be safe and I want you to feel like you can tell me anything, but I’m not mad.”

Nico hadn’t known how desperate his body had been for physical comfort, but now he was clinging to his sister like he would drown if he let go. “I’m sorry,” he choked, burying his head in her shoulder. If he smelled like graveyard dirt, then she was the fresh bouquets of flowers that were placed by the tombstones. She was life within death, beauty in the saddest of times, and Nico couldn’t imagine what he’d do if she wasn’t there. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

He was older than her, but a lot of the time he found himself taking the position of a younger sibling—needing to be looked after, worrying everyone, and generally not being very good at caring for himself on his own. Hazel was his little sister, and he _did_ step up to the plate and look out for her when he needed to, but the thing was that she was _good_ at taking care of herself. And she was good at taking care of him, too.

She was an asset during battles, holding her own and wielding the threat of death like a whip; but this part of her was what kept Nico alive. The delicate touch of her hands, the soft words, and the gentle kisses to his forehead were all things that Nico didn’t think he’d be able to live without. At some point, whether he liked it or not, he needed positive physical contact. Hazel was talented when it came to that.

He pulled away from her, sniffing and drying his eyes with the backs of his wrists. She was still touching his arm, a sign of reassurance that Nico greatly appreciated.

“Come on,” Hazel said, “I’m gonna help you get undressed. I’ll explain while you wash up.”

His hands were shaking as he took off his pants. The amount of blood was astounding, really. Hazel tugged his shirt up, pulling it over his head and leaving him in his sports bra and his blood-soaked boxer shorts.

“I—uh—“

“Oh! Sorry, sorry.” Hazel turned her back to him, letting him undress the rest of the way and climb into the shower before she faced him again. The shower door was made of frosted glass, so his figure was blurred, indecipherable, but he still felt exposed. He fumbled for his bar of soap, distracted by all the crimson that was running down the drain.

“Can the explaining part happen now?” He asked through the door, letting the hot water beat down on his back and calm him.

“Yeah, but-- you might want to be sitting down for this.”

-          

He didn’t remember all that Hazel said, because it was a blur of listening and pain and words he didn’t understand and his blood running down his legs. But if he took away anything from it, it was that he had something called a uterus and it shed its lining every month unless he got pregnant—which was still just as disgusting as it was when he’d processed it the first time.

“It prepares for the job of holding a baby and helping it develop,” Hazel had said, “and when there’s no pregnancy, it has no use for all that preparation, so it kind of… lets it all go. And then it starts again.”

“And you said it stretches?” Nico asked.

“Yeah. And so does your vagina, and your cervix, which is like the bridge between your vagina and your uterus. And it’s where you’d push the tampon up to, if you decided to use tampons.”

“… You put things _inside_ of you?”

“Well, if you want to. It absorbs the blood.”

“And you just _leave it_ in there?”

“Not over eight hours, but yes, you can just leave it in there.”

“… I did not sign up for this.”

There was more about how his body worked and what he could do on his period—that’s what that was called, when he started bleeding all over the place—and all sorts of stuff that Nico didn’t really understand the first time, but Hazel gave him a few books that looked like they’d be very helpful for future reference. He just didn’t like how it was targeted towards girls.

After he was cleaned up and in a fresh change of clothes, he felt a little better. Hazel had given him something called a pad, because the idea of using a tampon was horrifying and Nico didn’t want to learn how to do it on top of everything else that had happened that day. He still felt that foreign, disconcerting warmth between his legs, and he hated that this was going to be a monthly occurrence, but Hazel had him convinced it would all be okay. She was sitting with him on his bed, answering any questions he still had. It felt strange, talking to her about something he’d kept to himself for so long, but she was so natural about it, so kind and accepting, that he was glad she was the first person to know.

“You’re okay?” She kept asking that every five minutes. It might have been because Nico kept spacing out, but he couldn’t know for sure-- he was spacing out.

“Yeah, yeah, I…” He didn’t know if he was being honest or not. He didn’t know if he was ever really going to be okay. “It’s just a lot to take in.” He paused, searching for the right words in his head and having trouble finding them. “You’re sure—you’re sure this doesn’t change anything?”

Hazel’s brows furrowed, and she placed her hand on top of his. “You’ll always be my brother. Nothing will make me stop loving you. This is who you are— it doesn’t bother me. I’ll love you, always.”

Nico nodded, gritting his jaw against the tears that were threatening to bud in his eyes. He wasn’t about to break down for the second time in a half hour, no way. “Can you stay here tonight? So I don’t have to sleep through my first time with this alone?” It sounded even more childish than he’d imagined in his head, and he was angry with himself for being so dependent.

“Yes, absolutely.” Her answer was immediate, and Nico realized that he wasn’t a burden to her, that she _wanted_ to do this for him.

“Thank you, Hazel.”

“Anytime.” She was combing her fingers through his hair, her fingernails scratching gently over his head, and he felt so loved in that moment, so calm and content, that nothing else seemed to matter. If Hazel loved him, if Hazel would always love him, then there was nothing else he could ever want.

He wanted to say it, but the look in her eyes and the smile on her face told him that she already knew.

“We should get you something to eat so you can take some painkillers—maybe they have something in the dining hall.” Hazel took his hand and helped him up. She must have seen apprehension in his expression, because she added, “Nobody saw what happened. You don’t have to tell anybody if you don’t want to. It’s your life, Nico. You get to decide.”

Sometimes, though, he didn’t, and that’s what was scaring him. These things fell out of his control way too often, became other people’s business without his consent, and he was so used to having his right to choose being ripped away from him that he wasn’t sure he _knew_ how to decide for himself anymore. But he decided not to think about that right now, and instead walked alongside Hazel across the fields to the dining hall.

**Author's Note:**

> prompts for more trans nico adventures are more than welcome. feel free to leave any ideas/suggestions in the comments
> 
> edit: this has been up for a few days, and here's what i've noticed-- it's the same baseline as my earlier will/nico fic. the only differences are that it's earlier in the process of nico accepting himself as trans, and the fact that it's about a brother-sister relationship and not a romantic one.  
> and yet??? it's getting much fewer hits/kudos than my will/nico fic.  
> which i find interesting.   
> just some food for thought.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Audio] Sinfonietta For One Sorrowed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7243972) by [iphis18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphis18/pseuds/iphis18)




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